In Long Term Evolution (LTE for short) based low-cost machine type communication (MTC for short), coverage enhancement is performed on a coverage area of an LTE network, so as to implement normal communication between user equipment in a condition in which channel quality is relatively low and a base station.
In an existing system, according to that downlink coverage is larger than uplink coverage, a method for performing coverage improvement on uplink coverage is used, to implement normal communication between user equipment and a base station. In the prior art, however, coverage improvement is performed by considering only a difference between uplink and downlink coverage areas, and a coverage enhancement value cannot be accurately determined.